A well known method of cutting out pieces from a flexible sheet material consists in bringing the sheet material onto a table in a cutting-out zone, either as a single ply or as a plurality of superposed plies forming a lay-up, and in cutting out pieces in compliance with a pre-established layout by means of a tool which penetrates into the material while the sheet material is held against the table by suction, with a flexible sealing film being applied over the surface of the sheet material. The suction is obtained by sucking through the surface of the table. The tool is a knife moved with vertical vibrating motion or a circular blade and it is displaced relative to the table in a manner such as to cut out the pieces to the desired shapes, and at those locations on the surface of the sheet material which are defined by the pre-established layout. The tool cuts not only through the sheet material but also through the sealing film applied thereagainst.
Downstream from the cutting-out zone lies an unloading zone in which the pieces cut out from the sheet material are recovered. Each piece cut out from a single ply or each stack of pieces (or “wad”) cut out from a lay-up underlies a portion of the same shape cut out from the sealing film. The cut-out pieces or wads, optionally still covered with the corresponding portions of sealing film, on which identification information can be placed, are taken off in the unloading zone so as to be directed elsewhere or stored temporarily for subsequent use.
In the unloading zone, the presence of stencil-like “skeletons” of the sheet material and of the sealing film poses various problems. The term “skeletons” is used herein to designate offcuts of the plies or lay-ups of sheet material and of sealing film that are of shape complementary to the shape of the set of cut-out pieces. Such offcuts clutter up the unloading zone and must be removed by an operator. In addition, the presence of offcuts can complicate the identification of the pieces to be unloaded, in particular when at least some of the pieces are difficult to distinguish from the offcuts.